Texas Man Makes Tax Payment In $1 Notes, Gets Arrested

All Timothy Andrew Norris, 27, was trying to do was pay his property tax at the Wichita County Courthouse Annex in Wichita Falls, Texas last week. Okay – admittedly, he was trying to make his tax payment in very tightly folded $1 bills, which upset the situation somewhat.

In the process, Norris was arrested for “disrupting the operation and efficiency” of the local tax office while paying his bill.

It seems Norris was not particularly happy at having to pay out $600 in property tax, and it must have taken quite some time for him to fold each note so tightly, but he insisted he wanted to make his entire tax payment in individual $1 notes.

What happened was that things were taking so long, due to staff having to spend so much time unfolding each bill, he was actually told to leave the office by Wichita County Tax Assessor Collector Tommy Smyth.

According to Smyth, Norris created a disturbance in the office and disrupted the efficiency of the authority. He told the Times Record News that the $1 banknotes were folded so tightly it “required tax office personnel approximately six minutes to unfold each bill.”

That would mean it would take 3,600 minutes, or 60 hours in total, to unfold the bills. Longer than a normal work week.

RT News reports this was why Smyth had no choice but to ask Norris to leave the office, but he refused. He insisted he wanted to make his property tax payment. It turns out a deputy from the Wichita County Sheriff’s office was in the building at the time and he attempted to arrest Norris. However, Norris pulled away, resisting arrest, and eventually the deputy had to use force to detain him.

For attempting to make his property tax payment, Norris was charged with criminal trespass as well as an additional charge of resisting arrest. His bail for the two charges totaled $500.

Strange thing is, according to Section 31.06 of the Texas Tax Code, it seems it is quite legal to make a tax payment in cash:

A collector shall accept United States currency or a check or money order in payment of taxes and shall accept payment by credit card or electronic funds transfer.

Norris may have been pushing the envelope just a bit, though, by folding each individual note so tightly.

In other odd law-related news, TheInquisitr reports that some old and rather peculiar laws in Rhode Island may not last much longer. These included the fact that it was illegal to fertilize the lawn of a person’s property with seaweed taken from the beach.